october surprise

Well. Lol. Not really a surprise at all. Charlie is down with another seemingly catastrophic minor malady. Another gigantic abscess that shouldn't be so dramatic, except obvi Charlie never does anything by halves... Sigh.

surprise surprise, the king of the dings is still.... all dinged up

There are all sorts of potential causes for this latest episode too... We went from drought conditions to basically near constant rainfall... Or maybe it was a slow-brew from bruising after he lost all those shoes last month? Maybe something about the glue-on shoes created pressure points? 

Or maybe I just suck at managing Charlie, or he's irreparably chronically damaged. Or maybe it's just one of those things that happens to horses. I dunno. I'll never know. 

sir is sore and doesn't care who knows

But it's another front hoof this time --- tho not the limb of gravel-induced apocalypse fame, the other one. Obvi it's not ideal to have a giant abscess in any hoof, but Charlie is already so structurally compromised that it's pretty concerning to have him so lame up front again.

the Hanton glue-on shoes come off by chipping away the glue and prying back the tabs

And I try to be a normal person, ya know? Like. I try not to get panicky and be like, "OMG we need to do something right now." Bc ya know. For Charlie, it's never "just an abscess," right? 

Still, tho, esp with the glue-on shoes, a best case scenario would not include pulling the shoe. 

it's another mega abscess.... note the defect at the toe too

C'est la vie, tho. The shoe needed to go so we could open it up to drain and relieve pressure. Honestly I half expected the thing to explode as soon as the shoe was off, but no the farrier still had to do a little digging. It's definitely another biggie tho. Would need x-rays to confirm if it's the whole sole, like last time, but I'm guessing it's not far off. 

soaking protocols are so much easier with an indoor wash room with running hot water!

So ya know. Many of you have been down this road with us before. We're starting again on soaking / wrapping / booting protocol. Tho, having (hopefully) learned some lessons from last time, we're a bit more prepared for the booting aspect.

sad boy still likes his view

My hope is that if I can find the right fit and style of boot for Charlie to protect the stricken hoof, he'll be more willing to carry more weight on that leg -- and thus take less of a toll on the rest of his body from extreme compensation. 

i picked up this zip boot after his last lost shoe fiasco

I already had a brand new EasyCare Zip Boot on standby, after he lost all those shoes last month. Except, for some reason this boot is wayyy less generously proportioned than the exact same size Charlie wore quite successfully previously. 

Like, even just looking at it out of the box, it looked pretty wonky. Like it'd be super tight over the front of the hoof, with almost no room for the heel bulbs. 

it's the same size we used the last time, but for some reason fits way worse. pretty disappointed in the wasted dollars, not gonna lie

I tried to make it work tho -- and even added little relief cuts to make it less snug... bc ya know. I wanted Charlie in a boot immediately, wasted money be damned... But idk, I still didn't feel great about the fit. 

fortunately i could scare up another cloud boot in a larger size

Fortunately the local Dover actually had Cloud boots in stock. Which... Idk why I didn't call sooner to ask, I'd just showed up to replenish my Animalintex poultice pads, and there were the boots right there on the shelf lol. The largest size most retailers seem to carry is size 4. I'd previously picked up some size 3 boots that were not at all a fit for Charlie, but that have worked for Doozy, so, eh, I figured maybe the 4s will do?

fingers crossed the extra protection helps charlie heal with less collateral trauma :(

They aren't perfect tho. Really it's the space around the heel bulbs that concerns me. But maybe they'll loosen up after "breaking in"? We'll see. Regardless, the extra sole cushioning seems to definitely make a difference for Charlie, and he was much more willing to stand square up front in the boots. 

So ya know. That's what's up in Charlesland -- more of the same, per usual. I'll presumably have more updates, bc that's how I am lol, but hopefully this proves to be more run-of-the-mill than previous iterations! And at least there's Doozy to provide welcome distractions <3